


Demotion

by thrillhaus



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dream Seduction, Kylo Ren Redemption, M/M, Public Humiliation, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 15:06:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19008268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrillhaus/pseuds/thrillhaus
Summary: Allegiant General Pryde is weeding out the weak from the ranks of the First Order--including a certain general--in a public ceremony. Kylo doesn't know exactly how far Hux will go to protect himself--or how he'll respond.





	Demotion

Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, Master of the Knights of Ren, heir to the strongest bloodline of Force users the modern galaxy has ever known, is playing game show host.

At least he feels like it. Lately he’s been having  _ memories  _ of his childhood, not the ones he usually calls to consciousness--his mother’s neglect, his father’s neglect, their manifest inability to raise a monumentally gifted child--but random ones. Sometimes even ones that weaker minds might consider sweet. A walk with his mother through a garden. Playing with ink and brushes. Watching a hologram with his father, some silly contest presided over by a bow-tied xeno named Pritzi Bitsy Mitsi.

Usually he attempts to suppress these memories, and usually he succeeds, but today he’ll let one slip through. It’s funny. Pritzi Bitsy Mitsi, that’s what he feels like, sitting up here in the  _ Finalizer’s  _ hangar, surrounded by the Knights of Ren, watching over his men and machines as they perform in front of him. Leader of ceremonies, master of the game, and he doesn’t even have as many arms as Pritzi did (seven, if the memory isn’t warped). He hasn’t flown in ages. 

This is the reality of leadership, he supposes. Although nobody got decapitated in the hologram.

The decapitations--the ceremony itself--are Allegiant General Pryde’s idea. Officially he’s Fenrex Huw Briss-Pryde. An old creature, who must have seen some strange things, and the name is even more ridiculous than  _ Armitage _ . But he’s loyal to him and to the Knights--has to be loyal to the Knights, after what he’s seen in the Unknown Regions--and he’s effective. A good taskmaster. Certainly more loyal to Kylo Ren than Kylo Ren had been to the past Supreme Leader.

One of Pryde’s tasks is improving the quality of the stormtrooper stock. There was the defection of FN-2187, of course, and more recently, some of the others have been slack. Pryde has organized this event to improve--not morale, but quality. Remove the spores of disease, he had said. (Pryde is a avid gardener.) To do so, he’s been eliminating some of the troopers found guilty of minor offenses. In front of the others, to set examples.

Pryde seems to be enjoying himself, at least, at least as far as he has emotions left in him. He’s sitting on a dais in front of the customary thousands of stormtroopers, on a rather elaborate chair (he’s old, older than he looks), the other senior officials of the First Order ranged behind him. 

The elimination itself is dull--each erring stormtrooper is brought up to Pryde’s feet and made to kneel, then beheaded by a fellow trooper with an execution baton. They don’t even take off the helmets. It’s all very impersonal. Pryde sporadically twitches the whip that he carries everywhere, as if he’s holding himself back for a more interesting occasion, but that’s all. Not even the Knights, with their heightened bloodlust, are really enjoying it. 

Kylo finds it easier to concentrate on the officers down below, who have faces and personalities. He focuses on Hux, in particular, Hux’s anger and discontent. Hux despises Pryde, of course. Hux thinks of the troopers as his special experiments, his babies, in a way, and seeing Pryde discipline and refine them hurts--well, it hurts Hux’s pride. Hux has wanted only one thing since has known him--to stand in front of the fleet as Grand Marshal. An allegiant general isn’t exactly the same thing, but it’s a higher rank, nonetheless. 

Hux has taken to dressing as he did on Starkiller, probably in an effort to portray himself as still the boy wonder of the First Order. It’s an odd effect, making him look at once very young and prematurely aged. 

The last head rolls and the stormtroopers file out of the room, their measured steps sending tremors through the floor that even Kylo can feel. The vid-droids, activated to provide live holograms of the executions to those too far back to be educated first hand, flutter down to the floor and power down, their red lights fading to gray. The spectacle should be over.

Pryde reaches behind him and grabs Hux by the hand. It’s a strangely affectionate gesture, almost like a father to a child, but then Kylo understands what is about to happen. At least he understands that it’s bad for Hux, somehow. He won’t let on that he’s unsure of what exactly is meant to happen next.

The Knights’ energy flickers around him, their desire to see blood--real blood on real faces--stoked.

“Supreme Leader. With your permission.” Pryde gestures toward Hux with his whip. His expression hasn’t changed from its usual pouchy sneer; Hux has gone bright red, a snarl forming on his puffy lips. 

He doesn’t know what he’s giving permission for, but Kylo nods.

“General Armitage Hux,” Pryde intones, his eyes momentarily flickering to Hux’s face. Whatever this is, he’s done it often, or perhaps it’s not especially bad at all. Or perhaps it’s execution, and Kylo bites his tongue to stop himself from calling it, whatever it is, off. It’s another not execution, or there would be someone to catch the head. The Order is efficient that way.

Instead of taking out their batons, the two troopers that come forward to flank Hux reach to take off his greatcoat. Hux recoils and shrugs it off, instead, folding it carefully and handing it aside. Kylo can see Hux’s hands trembling under the harsh lights of the hangar. The Knights lean forward, as if they’re hungry, and he leans forward with them, willing himself into anticipation.

The troopers lift the sides of Hux’s tunic, and Kylo watches in surprise as Hux brings a hand up to an armored face, the force of his slap even knocking the helmet back a bit. 

Pryde doesn’t react. It’s only a trooper, after all, Kylo supposes, although Hux ducks his head, as if he’s done something wrong. Or maybe it’s that he needs to concentrate as he tucks his tunic neatly inside his belt.

Kylo understands that Pryde means to whip Hux. Perhaps he’ll lash him naked. Kylo feels a mild curiosity about Hux’s buttocks and, to his horror, a pang of pity. 

That’s not him. That’s the girl--the wound she left behind in his mental strength, the crack in the darkness that he’s almost sealed. 

_ Pity is weakness _ , he tells himself. It sounds stupid, like something Snoke would say, and he can’t help but dismiss it, even though it’s a step toward the Light, toward--

_ Why do you care for him, when you didn’t care for those stormtroopers? They’re both human, and the troopers died. Destroy this hypocrisy.  _ These are his own thoughts, pure and, he tells himself, true.

“For allowing the desertion of Stormtrooper FN-2187.” Pryde’s voice breaks through Kylo’s thoughts. He notices that Hux is still fully clothed. “Five lashes.” Pryde strikes, and the plait of his whip breaks across the baggy seat of Hux’s breeches. The crack echoes through the immense emptiness of the hangar.

Hux doesn’t flinch or cry out. Kylo can sense the Knights’ disappointment when the lashes stop. But Pryde keeps talking.

“For allowing the destruction of Weapon X0-2579-07.” That must be the official name of the Starkiller, or had been its official name. Kylo is surprised that Hux had had the imagination to give it something different. “Five lashes.”

Hux remains stoic. His lip doesn’t even tremble, although Kylo can sense the outrage boiling inside him. It’s actually impressive, from a physically unimpressive specimen like Hux. On the other hand, the strokes can’t hurt  _ that  _ much, through the thick fabric of the uniform. Kylo has seen him take worse. Force lightning, once. Next to Snoke’s punishments, this must be nothing. At least Hux knows it’s coming.

“For allowing the destruction of the dreadnought  _ Fulminatrix. _ Five lashes.”

Hux is usually quite good at shielding his thoughts--Snoke had taught him, as a way to irk Kylo, no doubt--but he’s thinking quite strongly of something and Kylo can sense it. He’s there, in one particular memory, and suddenly it rushes in--when they had been marooned together, and Hux had fancied that he had saved Kylo Ren. Force knows why he’s thinking of that now. Probably because it was a time when they were equals--correction, that Hux thought they were equals. 

Hux is attempting to comfort himself with a memory of happier times, Kylo realizes.

It had only been a cycle’s worth, at most, that they had been forced to spend together, but it had seemed longer. There had been several incidents that might have been problematic that Hux had--well, had assisted him with. The quest for Force relics could be a dangerous one, and one that, in the absence of his Knights, had to be undertaken alone. He had helped Hux, though, too.

Not that Hux appreciated it. He remembers Hux, covered in grit and slime and in his sockfeet, screaming himself hoarse about proper rescue protocol.

“Footwear is necessary in a survival environment!”

Kylo thinks he remembers shrugging this off. Or he might have strongly reminded the general that, without the assistance of the Force, he would have drowned, his lungs filled with glopsand. Either way, a missing boot or two was hardly worth the fuss Hux made over it.

Hux isn’t thinking of his boots. In his memories, he’s lying on the floor of the rescue ship, aching and dirty and tired and cold, watching Kylo beside him, blurry through his pale lashes, Kylo stripping the fabric of his knight’s uniform away to reveal his --

Wait. Kylo has experienced this memory, but the other way round, looking down at Hux. He had thought Hux was sleeping, finally worn out by his unnecessary rescue attempt. Hux might be clever, but he was physically weaker. Kylo could have gotten off the planet himself. Well, not himself, but there was no need to send Hux after him, like he was some sort of lost dog.

When Hux was worn down to collapse--or so Kylo had thought--Kylo had taken the time to clean and bind his wounds. Let that stick of a man think Kylo Ren was invincible, that he could walk off shrapnel and the swipe of a Darfluggian panther’s paw. He’d bind his wounds as best he could while Hux was sleeping, then fully heal himself back on the destroyer.

But he’d been wrong about Hux’s strength. Hux had been watching him the whole time, watching him expose himself, skin and muscle and bone. (Not an  _ important _ bone, but the cuts had been worse than he had thought.) Watching him tape his flesh together. And saying nothing.

“For allowing the injury of the  _ Supremacy _ , and the destruction of the  _ Executrix,  _ the  _ Accipiter _ , the  _ Cathardex _ , the…” Pryde drones on, every ship destroyed by the terrorist attack. They’re still rebuilding, a year later. Kylo has been forced to concern himself with this; the Knights, lucky things, are merely wondering when Hux will really start bleeding. Masith Ren wants to see a lash for every ship.

Masith is the strangest since his return from the Unknown Regions, and Kylo Ren isn’t afraid of anything, but he’s--he’s alert to his knight. That’s all. 

In any case, Masith Ren is not about to get his wish.

“Hand that coat to me.” Pryde shakes the greatcoat out of Hux’s careful folds and reaches inside one of the sleeves, pulls out a monomolecular blade, slim and shining. He holds the sleeve out, pinching the hem between thumb and finger as if it’s dirty, although Kylo can’t imagine that it’s anything other than clean and neatly pressed.

Pryde cocks his head and holds up the knife, as if he’s about to operate.

_ On the coat, and not him? _ Kylo wonders.  _ What a strange custom. He’s lucky _ , but Hux suddenly hisses  _ don’t  _ and Kylo knows that Pryde means to cut his general’s stripe.

Pryde turns his head, slowly, as if it’s an effort to look Hux in the face, one he’s unhappy that he has to make.

Hux is as white as stone and as still as death. 

Kylo senses Hux’s thoughts--past anger, to panic and the foreknowledge of grief. He can’t be Colonel Hux, he hasn’t been for ages, it’s a  _ child’s  _ rank, he won’t be  _ safe _ \--

Hux meets Kylo’s stare.

Even for a Force null, it takes nothing, no time at all, to create a little world within one’s mind. The memory suddenly shifts, into imagination. Kylo is seeing something that never happened, and quite deliberately. Sometimes this happens. Just as people try to protect their thoughts from the eyes of the Force, they expose themselves as well, or project.  

Hux is thinking of himself back on the rescue ship, watching Kylo tend to his wounds, but this time he raises himself, slowly peels off his filthy gloves, and puts his hands to work, swabbing at the crusted blood on Kylo’s flank with the little packets of prebacta. Kylo has never seen Hux’s hands out of their gloves, or if he has, he hasn’t bothered to remember them. They are finely formed and small, soft, almost milk-blue in their whiteness. In lived reality, Hux had considered this, but turned away from it. Let filthy Kylo clean up a bit of his own mess, for once. That had been his opinion at the time.

_ Perhaps if I’d been kinder to you _ . Dream-Hux presses a bacta pad down, tapes it precisely to Ren’s thigh, just like they taught in the academy’s first response all those years ago. Can imagine the sensation now, ghostly against his skin. He can see himself, through Hux’s eyes, his own slashed skin and muscle. He looks strong, stronger than he does in real life. Perhaps Hux is flattering him, or perhaps Hux really does see him that way. An invincible block of a man.

“There. That should hold.” Hux runs his fingers along the lines where tape meets flesh, as if he doesn’t trust his own work, which seems unlike him until the intent becomes clear. 

Hux is attempting to  _ seduce  _ him.

Kylo has always wondered how Hux made it to his rank so young. Nepotism seemed the most likely answer--there had been a Brendol Hux, who had been important at something--but it could have been smarts, or dark wiles of some sort. Maybe sexual, you couldn’t count that out.

Judging by the awkwardness of even the imaginary Hux, he couldn’t have succeeded that often, or perhaps this tactic has worked in the past, for real--this cold touch is what passes for affection in the Order. He doesn’t know how to be simply be kind, much less to express love, yet in the abyss of his fear he’s willing to try to please. 

_ I care for you. More than he does, certainly. I would do this for you, if you’d let me.  _ He’s saying this, in his mind.  _ I couldn’t do this, if I wasn’t with you. If I can’t be close to you. _

It is nice, to be touched, to have even the promise of a touch. No one has touched him like this since--does Hux know somehow? How would he? What i Hux playing at? Can he let the game play out a little longer?

Hux presses his lips to Kylo’s hip, above the wound. His lips are cold, and--

Porob Ren snorts. Kylo looks over in time to see the knight make a lewd gesture in Hux’s direction. It’s the kind of gesture that usually involves a tongue, but the meaning still comes across.  _ How did he do that with the mask on?  _

Hux has erred. He isn’t used to the presence of the Knights--he didn’t realize that his thoughts wouldn’t be sensed by Kylo alone.  


“Would you do that for all of us? Or just your commander?” Porob rasps.

Hux doesn’t look particularly erotic now, slumped into parade rest, wringing a glove behind his back. A hand, a real hand, is on display, still small, but blotched with red at the fingertips. He bites his nails, Kylo notices. _ When? How does he have the time? _

Still, he rallies. “It wouldn’t be necessary for you. You wouldn’t have the strength to survive in the first place.”

“Stop.” Kylo says it before he considers it. It’s mercy, he thinks, the girl has brought him to mercy, and then he thinks that it’s still pity. Pity, which at least corrodes, which is at least not forgiveness, which contains its own element of cruelty. Hux is lesser, irredeemably lesser, he is and always will be.

Actually, It doesn’t matter whether he’s feeling mercy or pity right now, they’re all waiting for him to say something. Pryde already has the blade pushed underneath the little piece of fabric that means so much to Hux.

“The contributions of General Armitage Hux have been incalculable to the destruction of the nest of vermin that called itself the New Republic.” That sounds appropriate. “Allegiant General Pryde, your punishment has been enough. Let him remain in his rank.”

To his credit, Pryde simply puts the monomolecular blade into the neck of his uniform and restores Hux’s greatcoat to him. Hux carefully slips it back on his shoulders. The two of them look up at him at once. Pryde is himself, as always. Hux is in a state of lunatic shock. He was convinced that he’d played his last sabacc card, that there was no way that his attempt to save himself would work. The glove is back on, and he pats his hair with a shiny black hand, preening like a bird.

He’s ungrateful, Kylo decides. As no doubt he would be if that encounter had continued, in thought or in life.

Kylo stands and makes his way down the steps. He’s been a poor host. He can sense them all--Pryde implacable, the Knights unsatisfied and vengeful, toward whom, Kylo doesn’t really want to to consider. He wonders how they sensed Hux's vision, whether they see him as weeker now, too. He’s managed to please no one, except perhaps Hux, whom he least needs to please. He’s a shit emcee, he decides. Pritzi would have done better.

Even so--when he passes Hux, he can sense the man’s contentment, the brush that Hux gives to the sleeve of his greatcoat. Kylo has helped someone today, despite his best intentions, and it it shouldn’t feel good--it’s stupid, it’s weak, it’s  _ Hux _ of all people--but it does.

Something brushes the back of Kylo’s neck, where the panther's claw had glanced. There had been a moment when he had closed his eyes on that ship. Just one moment, of course, and when he woke up--opened his eyes--Hux had been in the exact same position, sleeping (fake sleeping, he knows now). But the wound on his neck had stopped bleeding, and the dirt and gore was gone.  


He had assumed he had done it and forgotten it, because it wasn't important--but what if?

Hux has already gone ahead of him, as if he wasn't almost just demoted. He looks back at Kylo and sneers--and blows a kiss _?_

_Damn him._  Annoyance rushes through Kylo's blood, sure and strong and almost overwhelming any weaker, Lighter emotion. 

_ That's why I keep him around. He's the stone I whet my anger against. Nothing more. _

Still, as Kylo Ren disappears among his Knights, his hand drifts against his neck and the tiny, straight scar there. _Nothing less._  


  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> What will happen in that comic? It will probably be pornier than what I've written.


End file.
